Tag: treaty
Afghanistan And U.S. Sign Long-Delayed Troop Pact

Afghanistan And U.S. Sign Long-Delayed Troop Pact

Kabul (AFP) – Afghanistan and the United States on Tuesday signed a deal to allow about 10,000 U.S. troops to stay in the country next year, as new President Ashraf Ghani took a major step towards mending frayed ties with Washington.

Hamid Karzai, who stepped down as president on Monday, had refused to sign the deal — a disagreement that symbolized the breakdown of Afghan-U.S. relations after the optimism of 2001 when the Taliban were ousted from power.

Afghan National Security Adviser Hanif Atmar and U.S. Ambassador James Cunningham inked the bilateral security agreement (BSA) at a ceremony in the presidential palace in Kabul as Ghani looked on.

“We have signed an agreement which is for the good of our people, the stability of the region and the world,” Ghani said, adding it would allow continued U.S. funding for the 350,000-strong Afghan security forces.

“Threats exist to our joint interests, and this gives us a common goal,” Ghani said after fulfilling his campaign vow to have the deal signed on his first full day in office.

Many long-term international aid pledges were dependent on the BSA being signed to strengthen security.

Taliban insurgents still pose a major risk despite years of effort by NATO’s US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

NATO combat operations will finish at the end of this year, and the Taliban have launched a series of recent offensives that have severely tested Afghan soldiers and police.

NATO’s follow-up mission, which will take over on January 1, will be made up of 9,800 U.S. troops and about 3,000 soldiers from Germany, Italy and other member nations.

The new mission — named Resolute Support — will focus on training and assisting Afghan forces as they take on the Taliban, in parallel with U.S. counter-terrorism operations.

“Afghan security forces have demonstrated their resolve and capability,” U.S. Ambassador James Cunningham said.

“This agreement will enable the United States to help (them) to build on this progress after the ISAF mission comes to a close.”

Cunningham said the deal would also open the way for further support in health, education and women’s issues in Afghanistan, which faces a growing economic crisis.

Negotiations over the pact saw Karzai, who came to power in 2001, at his most unpredictable as he added new demands and shifted positions, infuriating the U.S.

He eventually refused to sign the agreement last year despite a “loya jirga” grand assembly which he had convened voting for him to do so. There was also widespread public support for U.S. troops to stay.

On the election campaign trail, both Ghani and his poll rival Abdullah Abdullah vowed to reverse Karzai’s decision.

Without a deal, Washington had threatened to pull all U.S. forces out by the end of the year, but it chose to wait through a long election deadlock until Afghanistan finally got a new president on Monday.

After month of disputes over fraud, Ghani agreed to a power-sharing deal with Abdullah, who has taken up the new role of chief executive.

NATO support next year is seen as essential for national stability — though the limited size of the mission and the fact that it will be scaled back during 2015 will restrict its capabilities.

U.S. President Barack Obama has previously announced that the U.S. force will be halved by the end of next year, before being reduced to a normal embassy protection presence by the end of 2016.

The failure to sign a similar deal with Iraq in 2011 led to a complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country, which is now engulfed in Islamist violence.

The Taliban described the signing of the BSA as “embarrassing and regrettable”.

“We tell America and its slaves that we will continue our holy jihad until our country is liberated from the claws of savage Americans,” the group said in a emailed statement.

The security threat in Kabul was underlined on Monday by a suicide attack outside the airport’s main entrance that killed four members of the Afghan security forces and three civilians.

The inauguration marked the country’s first democratic transfer of power, although the UN said the election was beset by “significant fraud”.

AFP Photo/Wakil Kohsar

U.S.: Russia Has Violated Arms Treaty By Testing Cruise Missile

U.S.: Russia Has Violated Arms Treaty By Testing Cruise Missile

Washington (AFP) – The United States has found that Russia violated a 1987 arms control treaty by testing a ground-launched cruise missile, a senior U.S. official said late Monday, calling the matter “very serious.”

The announcement adds a new dispute at a time of already heightened tensions between Washington and the Kremlin over the crisis in Ukraine, with western countries accusing Russia of arming Ukrainian separatists and destabilizing the country.

The U.S. concluded in a 2014 report that Russia had violated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which barred it from possessing, producing or flight-testing such cruise missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers, the official told AFP.

President Barack Obama has sent a letter to his counterpart Vladimir Putin on the subject, which the administration official described as “a very serious matter which we have attempted to address with Russia for some time now.”

Washington was prepared to discuss its determination with Moscow “immediately” in senior-level bilateral talks, the official added, saying Congress and U.S. allies have been kept abreast of the matter.

“The United States is committed to the viability of the INF Treaty,” the official said. “We encourage Russia to return to compliance with its obligations under the treaty and to eliminate any prohibited items in a verifiable manner.”

The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), signed by then U.S. president Ronald Reagan and his Russian counterpart Mikhail Gorbachev, eliminated nuclear and conventional intermediate range ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles.

The official said the INF treaty served the “mutual security interests of the parties” — not only the United States and Russia but also 11 other successor states of the Soviet Union.

“Moreover, this treaty contributes to the security of our allies and to regional security in Europe and in the Far East.”

“The United States will, of course, consult with allies on this matter to take into account the impact of this Russian violation on our collective security if Russia does not return to compliance,” the official said.

In January, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Washington had raised concerns with Moscow following a New York Times report it had begun testing a new ground-launched cruise missile as early as 2008, and that the State Department’s senior arms control official had repeatedly raised the issue with Moscow since May 2013.

Psaki said at the time she could not refute the details of the Times report, and that there was an ongoing interagency review to determine whether the Russians had violated the terms of a US-Russian arms control pact.

 

Billy Frank Jr., Nisqually Elder Who Fought For Treaty Rights, Dies At 83

Billy Frank Jr., Nisqually Elder Who Fought For Treaty Rights, Dies At 83

By Craig Welch, The Seattle Times

SEATTLE — Billy Frank Jr., a Nisqually elder and fisherman who served for more than half a century as the charismatic voice of Northwest tribes fighting to exercise their treaty rights, died early Monday, tribal officials and his family confirmed Monday.

Frank was 83.

“We are all stunned and not prepared for this,” said W. Ron Allen, Jamestown S’Klallam tribal chairman, who has worked with Frank since the early 1980s. “He was bigger than life. It’s a very sad day for all of us.”

Frank was first arrested for salmon fishing as a boy in 1945. He was beaten and jailed repeatedly as he and others staged “fish ins” demanding the right to collect Chinook and other salmon in their historical waters, as guaranteed under treaties when they ceded land to settlers in the 19th century. By the time celebrities like Marlon Brando showed up on the Nisqually River to assist them in 1964, the salmon wars had raged for decades.

In 1974, U.S. District Judge George Boldt affirmed the tribes’ right to half of the fish harvest — and the nation’s obligation to honor the old treaties. In 1993, another court decision extended that affirmation to the harvest of shellfish.

By then Frank already had become one of the nation’s most eloquent and influential tribal champions.

He fought in Olympia and Washington, D.C., to protect forests and salmon streams from excessive timber harvest and development. He battled in court, in endless public meetings and in private conversations with anyone who would listen. With his soft voice, strong handshake and endless stories, he disarmed senators and presidents.

“He wanted all these tribes to understand that if they worked together we could do anything,” his son, Willie Frank, said.

Gov. Jay Inslee called Frank not just a tribal leader but a state leader.

“We can’t overstate how long-lasting his legacy will be,” Inslee said in an interview. “He pushed the state when he needed to push the state. And he reminded the state when it needed reminding. His legacy is going to be with us for generations. My grandkids are going to benefit from his work.”

Steve Robinson, who worked side-by-side with Frank for 30 years, serving as his spokesman and writer starting in the mid-1980s, said Frank would never hesitate to do battle over what he believed. But he also had the instincts and skills of a diplomat.

Frank more than anyone else, Robinson said, could convince people that the way to prosperity was through a healthy environment, because Frank believed it. Robinson called “the greatest man I’ve ever known.”

“When he walked into the room, he just had such a power and presence,” Robinson said. “We would have visitors from Russia, Asia, South America, and he’d delight them all. He’d travel to Barrow or Kamchatka and kids would line up to see him. But he was always humble. He knew no strangers and hugged everybody.”

Pat Stevenson, the environmental manager for the Stillaguamish Tribe, said Frank was selfless, rather than focused on his own accomplishments, and always used words like “we” and “us” and “the tribes.”

“He was there to make it better for everybody,” Stevenson said.

Frank was a fighter to the very end, said his son, who woke his father around 6 a.m. Monday to get ready for another meeting.

Frank showered and dressed but when Willie went back to check in, his father was hunched over in bed.

“I asked him every day if he was feeling good, but he would never tell me if he wasn’t,” Willie said. “He wouldn’t want people to worry about him.”

Photo via Flickr